Marginal Christianity

Those Who Pray the Psalms In this section Bonhoeffer connects Jesus to the Psalms through David, who is credited with most of the psalms in the Psalter (73). He is a type of Jesus Christ. Bonhoeffer works out this typological connection this way: -David’s life prefigures Christ’s (Acts 2:30ff). -“David was a witness to Christ in his kingly office, in his life, and in his words.” (Heb. 2:12; 10:5; Heb.3:7) “The same words that David spoke, therefore, the future Messiah spoke in him. Christ prayed along with the prayers of David or, more accurately, it is none other than Christ who prayed them in Christ’s own forerunner, David.” (3464-3472) -David’s prayers, then, are not simply personal, but also those of the Christ who indwelt him. “David, remains himself; but Christ dwells in him and with him.” (3476) -though David did not write every psalm in the psalter, yet the psalter as a whole is connected to him. Since Christ indwells David, the whole psalter becomes his words b...

We’ll be using Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Prayerbook of the Bible (Kindle edition) on the Psalms in this Monday spot replacing Moltmann Mondays for a while. Bonhoeffer has a distinctive take on the Psalms and their role in Christian prayer so I hope you will find the material here provocative and helpful. We often hear that prayer is simply talking to God. Whatever is on our hearts, we should just let him know. Bonhoeffer disagrees. “Praying certainly does not mean simply pouring out one’s heart. It means, rather, finding the way to and speaking with God, whether the heart is full or empty. No one can do that on one’s own. For that one needs Jesus Christ.” (3405-3407) On our own, we have no true prayer. However, “If Christ takes us along in the prayer which Christ prays, if we are allowed to pray this prayer with Christ, on whose way to God we too are led and by whom we are taught to pray, then we are freed from the torment of being without prayer . . . that is what Jesus Chris...

“The book of Psalms is an ancient mapping of Israel’s life with YHWH, a mapping that has continued through the centuries to be the primary guide for faith and worship in both the synagogue and the church”                                                                                                                                    ...

Types of Psalms and Poetry The word psalms is derived from the Greek   Ψαλμοί ( Psalmoi ). It might mean "music of the lyre" or " songs sung to a harp " It comes from the verb psallein, "to play upon a stringed instrument" and then to "make music in any fashion.” Divisions of the book We noticed earlier that the Book of Psalms is divided into five books. Likely this is an analogy to the five books of Moses, each of them closing with a doxology or benediction. 1-41: All of these are attributed to David. Even untitled psalms (1,2,10,33) were also traditionally ascribed to David. While Davidic authorship cannot be confirmed, this probably is the oldest section of the Psalms. 42-72: Eighteen of these are attributed to David. Psalm 72 is believed to be written by David as a prayer for his son. The rest are anonymous. 73-89: Psalm 86 is ascribed to David, Psalm 88 to Heman the Ezrahite , and Psalm 89 to E...

The Psalms as Liberation Theology and The Unliberating Theology We North Americans Hold “The psalms are dangerous . . . The psalms are a crash course in liberation theology.” So writes Richard Beck ( http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-psalms-as-liberation-theology.html ). So used are we to reading the Psalms as “spiritual” or devotional reflections on the inner state of state of our hearts and our relationship with God. We think they deal with us (as individuals and a corporate people) and God. The spiritual/material dualism which keeps us locked within our souls (so to speak), and which we owe to Plato, causes us to miss the presence of a third party in many of the psalms of lament or disorientation. These psalms, you might remember, are responses to times in our lives when everything has unraveled and fallen apart. It feels like life has ended so traumatic is our distress or suffering. We tend to read these laments as general expressions of mourning and gri...

I'm beginning a series on the Psalms, all of them, in 2019. Every other day or so starting today post another reflection on one or more of the Psalms. Several introductory posts get us oriented to the approach to these poems I will take. Spend a year with me in the Psalter, won't you? The Psalms (1) Their Focus The 150 poems, or prayers, in the book of Psalms probe the height and depth, the length and breadth, of the relationship between Israel’s God and Israel. The heart, hopes, hurts, drives, dysfunctions, joys, and practices that form that relationship are opened up for inspection, appropriation, and performance. The Psalms: -show us what constitutes this relationship, -guide us into this relationship, and -nurture us into deeper relation to God. The People God created the people of Israel when he called Abraham and Sarah out from Ur to follow him to a place where he would lead them and promised them a great and large family. God would bless and pr...

A Book We Read That Also Reads Us A Conversation about the Psalms with Dr. John Goldingay   "If you open to the middle of the Bible, you'll probably be in Psalms." "The Psalms are like the worship music of the Old Testament." Those two sentences summed up my (Jesse’s) knowledge of the Psalms for the first twenty years of my life. I memorized Psalm 23 as a kid, and I knew some of the "Greatest Hits" like Psalm 8 and Psalm 139, but for the most part, they remained a mystery. Some exploded with happiness and thanksgiving, others with sadness and anger, and many of them had images and words I did not understand.  Selah. Maybe you can relate. But as it turns out, we can understand and experience the Book of Psalms as a wonderful, intricate blessing once we have a little training, and there are few persons better suited for that task than Fuller Seminary's John Goldingay. Dr. Goldingay is the David Allan Hubbard Professor of...